Hotel Alley Wrecks, Bonaire

Sometimes small wrecks are enough of a shelter to attract marine life, making for fantastic diving.

In Bonaire, there is also a series of small wrecks right in front of a few of the oceanfront Bonaire hotels that are very amusing to dive. And because there is finally a marine reserve (no fishing zone) in Bonaire from in the south Harbourvillage to the north at Captain Don's Habitat, you will find more marine life on some of these wrecks then elsewhere on the island.

Occupancy at the hotel is not necessary to shore-dive any of these wrecks.

In front of Eden Beach Resort is a sailboat with a strange name. The Baka de Laman or in English, The Sea Cow, was sunk by Hurricane Lenny and sits in 65 feet of water. It is a nice little intact wreck.

A little deeper in front of Coco Beach is the wreck of a small pilot boat. Turned over on the bottom, it’s home to a very large moray eel. It sits at 100 feet.

In front of Habitat is a small overturned boat called La Machaca (pictured above) which is home to a group of snappers and a tiger grouper.

A little more difficult to find is a barge lying at 120 feet in front of the water desalination plant. As the boat was constructed as a water barge, the hull is completely closed off. Disappointingly there are no cabins, portholes or small openings to explore.

And just north of the water barge, in front of the boat yard is part of a boat in the shallows in which many fish have claimed residency. The fish we've been watching for years now is a resident margate, who spends his day swimming in and out of the multiple windows (pictured below).